COURSE DESCRIPTIONS SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM SPRING

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1 COURSE DESCRIPTIONS SOCIOLOGY GRADUATE PROGRAM SPRING 2019 Last Updated 11/6/18

2 SPRING 2019 COURSE OFFERING AND DEPARTMENTAL REQUIREMENTS For the SPRING 2019 semester, the following courses will fulfill the departmental requirements listed below: Required Courses SOC 63092: Proseminar II (1 credit) SOC 63913: Research Methods (3 credits) SOC 71994: Categorical Data Analysis Lab (0 credit) SOC 73994: Categorical Data Analysis (3 credits) Foundational Courses1 SOC 63515: Political Sociology (3 credits) SOC 63826: Social Stratification (3 credits) Advanced Methods SOC 63915: Designing Qualitative Research (3 credits) Graduate Level Seminars1 SOC 63001: Power and Violence (3 credits) SOC 63002: Durkheim, Civil Religion, and Moral Deviance (3 credits) SOC 63199: Cultural Objects & Materiality (3 credits) SOC 63239: Sociology of Education (3 credits) SOC 63651: Sociology of Religion I (3 credits) 1 Courses listed under the Foundational and Advanced Methods sections can also count as a Graduate Level Seminars. However, these courses may only be counted towards ONE requirement.

3 COURSE OFFERINGS: SPRING 2019 SOC Power and Violence Monday: 3:30-6:15 p.m. Joshua Lund This will be a highly conceptual course whose goal will be to review the philosophical relations between power and violence and their relation to aesthetics. Authors to study include: Weber, Benjamin, Gandhi, Fanon, Sartre, Mills, Arendt, Guevara, Foucault, Walesa, Galtung, Said, Lasch, Critchley, Bernstein, and case studies around the French Foreign Legion in Latin America, Black Lives Matter, and Dakota Access Pipeline protest. Taught in English. (Crosslisted course with Romance Languages and Literatures) SOC Durkheim, Civil Religion, and Moral Deviance Tuesday: 12:30pm-3:15pm Todd Whitmore The first third of the course will involve reading deeply in Durkheim's work. Building on Durkheim, the second third will address civil religion, and will involve reading Robert Bellah and others. We will then read Martin Luther King to ask whether his speeches constitute a form of civil religion or a challenge to it. In the third part of the course, we, again building on Durkheim's work, will read literature on deviance, including Mary Douglas' Purity and Danger and Howard Becker's Outsiders, as well as more recent literature. We will then investigate how Dorothy Day went out to the deviants of society, and ask both what enabled her to do so and whether her own practices constitute "positive deviance." (Crosslisted with Theology) SOC Proseminar II (1 credit) Friday: 10:00-11:00 a.m. Lyn Spillman The main goal of Proseminar II is to expose students to the substantive areas of strength in the department. Representatives from each area exam committee in the department will coordinate a series of presentations on the overall intellectual landscape and cutting edge issues in their area. Sociology Graduate Students Only. SOC From Dissertation to Book: Models and Methods for Young Scholars (1 credit) Every Other Wednesday: 10:00-11:00 a.m. Chris Smith This 1-credit workshop explores how successful book-style dissertations are designed, researched, written, and brought to publication, by examining the characteristics of a variety of published exemplars. Participants in the workshop will together read, systematically analyze, and discuss together about 7 published books that grew out of doctoral dissertations (including a few recent ND sociology PhDs). We will focus our analytic attention on the key issues of each book s research question(s), motivating framework, theoretical significance, research design, empirical data collection, methods of data analyses, contribution to scholarship, positionality of the author, coherence of overarching story, style of writing, and other strengths and weaknesses. We will also discuss basics of the book publishing process itself. Some chance to interact directly with book authors by Skype is also likely. Participating

4 students will be invited, though not required, to submit their written dissertation research project proposals (at any stage of development) to the professor (and optionally to other students) for critical analysis and feedback in light of what we learn in the workshop. The 7 books examined in the workshop will be drawn from the field of the sociology of religion (not works on the religion doctoral exam reading list), but the lessons to be learned here will transcend religion as a specific field, so should be valuable to many graduate students doing work in most fields of the discipline. Most of the books will be qualitative, historical, and/or mixed methods in their approach. Some are award-winning books. Sociology graduate students in any field and cohort-year who are considering writing book-style dissertations are welcome to participate. The workshop will meet every-other Wednesday from 10:00-11:40AM. The ND CSRS will help subsidize the cost of purchasing the books required for the workshop. SOC Culture Workshop (1 credit) Friday: 1:30-3:00 p.m. Terry McDonnell If your research examines the role of culture in society, we invite you to join our cross-disciplinary workshop. Every other week the workshop tackles one paper, circulated in advance. Our goal is to help both faculty and graduate students as they revise and refine works-in-progress: early manuscripts, articles under review, conference papers, dissertation chapters, grant and fellowship proposals, practice job talks, and the like. Polished or published papers are best reserved for other settings. The setting is informal. Since workshop participants are expected to have read the paper in advance, the author should not come with a formal presentation prepared. Instead, authors should be prepared to introduce the paper in 5-10 minutes by summarizing the argument and outlining for the group any questions or concerns hopes to have answered by the end of the workshop. Our definition of what constitutes culture is necessarily broad and cross-disciplinary. You'd be a good fit for the workshop if your work engages meaning and interpretation, cultural practice, ideology, cultural objects, discourse, creativity, production or reception of culture, morality, categorization, narrative, visual culture, cognition, materiality, tastes, media, and much more. We are even open to papers that might not have a cultural dimension but that might benefit from one. SOC Cultural Objects & Materiality Wednesday: 3:30-6:15 p.m. Terry McDonnell Daniel Miller argues there is a humility of things, suggesting that objects have substantially more power over our lives than we give them credit for. If this is true, it raises the question of whether sociology has sufficiently theorized the power of objects. While sub-disciplines in sociology have analyzed objects with varying degrees of theoretical sophistication, we almost always treat objects as by-products of social relationships. This class asks instead, what can objects do? How do they shape behavior? What if we take objects seriously as an analytical subject in sociology? I hope as a class we can move this conversation forward and develop a more robust and uniquely sociological theory of objects and materiality. In the service of this goal we ll read widely across disciplines to take from the best of what is written on objects and materiality while avoiding the pitfalls of previous approaches. We ll grapple with major theories and methods of object-based social analysis from classic sociological theory, cultural sociology, science and technology studies, actor-network theory, symbolic interaction, material culture studies, anthropology, psychology, embodiment, materiality, and more. Throughout the class we ll address how to incorporate object-based methods into your research agenda.

5 SOC Sociology of Education Monday: 9:00-11:30 a.m. Mark Berends A primary focus of this course will be on family, school, and classroom effects on educational outcomes and social inequality. We will cover topics in the sociology of education related to family background, school effects, sector effects, tracking and ability grouping, and classroom and teacher effects. We will look at the structure, practices, content, and outcomes of schooling, primarily in the light of their relationships to the wider society in which schools are situated. As part of the course, we will also consider the social and organizational context of contemporary education reforms in the United States particularly test-based accountability for schools, teachers, and students. SOC ND Pier Colloquium (1 credit) Friday: 12:30-3:15 p.m. Mark Berends Interdisciplinary educational seminar sponsored by the Institute for Educational Initiatives (IEI) and the Program for Interdisciplinary Educational Research (ND PIER). This seminar will feature presentations of educational research by an invited speaker from off campus, a Notre Dame faculty member, or graduate student. Discussions of talks, methods, and contributions to educational policies, practices, and programs will follow each presentation. SOC CREO Seminar (2 credits) Monday: 3:30 5:00 p.m. Amy Langenkamp This course focuses on new and innovative research in the substantive area of sociology of education. Several different formats are used during the semester. First, prominent scholars from outside Notre Dame are invited to present their on-going research to seminar participants. Second, seminar participants (faculty and graduate students) are encouraged to present their on-going research in order to receive feedback to help improve the quality of their scholarship. Finally, some classes may focus on a recently published paper that is particularly influential and relevant for future research. SOC Political Sociology Tuesday: 12:30-3:15 p.m. Rory McVeigh The course investigates political behavior from a variety of angles. We will consider theoretical framing of the nature of the state in democratic societies, as well as the emergence and stability of democratic regimes. We will examine the sources of political interest formation and voting behavior, as well as the many ways that political action takes place outside of political institutions. Understanding the nature of power is at the center of all of these issues. Coursework will prioritize students development of original research questions that, with further development, could result in published research articles. SOC Social Movements & Politics (1 credit)

6 Tuesday: 9:30-10:30 a.m. Rory McVeigh Seminar for graduate students conducting research in the areas of politics and social movements. The course focuses on presentation of on-going research projects and structured feedback about those projects. Participants will also read and discuss recent contributions to the social movements literature. SOC Sociology of Religion I Thursday: 3:30-6:15 p.m. Chris Smith This seminar explores major theoretical and analytical approaches in the sociology of religion in order to orient students to the field, provide a framework for preparing for the doctoral exam, and lay the groundwork for theoretically important original empirical research. SOC Social Stratification Monday & Wednesday: 2:00-3:15 p.m. David Hachen The purpose of this seminar is to provide participants with an in-depth introduction to theories of and research on social stratification and inequalities. During the semester we will explore issues related to social classes, social mobility and attainment, income inequality, labor markets, poverty, race, gender, globalization, and changes in stratification systems. SOC Research Methods Tuesday & Thursday: 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Elizabeth McClintock Provides an introduction to measurement theory, research design, and a review of various methods of data-gathering, including experimental, observational, and survey data collection techniques. Students will gain experience with a variety of techniques of measurement and will be guided through the process of developing a research proposal. SOC Designing Qualitative Research Tuesday: 3:30-6:15 p.m. Lyn Spillman The goal of this course is provide an opportunity to examine in depth important issues in qualitative research design, including the formulation of research problems; classification, description, and measurement; types of explanation and inference; comparative design; and the logic of case study design. Our reading and discussion will focus on general methodological reflections and debates of qualitative researchers, especially but not exclusively the broadly applicable work of comparative

7 historical sociologists. We will also analyze and critique research design in several illustrative empirical studies. The class will not treat basic skills involved in different types of qualitative research. However, students may develop and revise research proposals and research projects in the course of class work. SOC Categorical Data Analysis Lab Friday: 3:30-5:00 p.m. Abby Jorgensen Lab that accompanies SOC 73994, Categorical Data Analysis SOC Categorical Data Analysis Monday & Wednesday: 12:30-1:45 p.m. Rich Williams This course discusses methods and models for the analysis of categorical dependent variables and their applications in social science research. Researchers are often interested in the determinants of categorical outcomes. For example, such outcomes might be binary (lives/dies), ordinal (very likely/somewhat likely/not likely), nominal (taking the bus, car, or train to work) or count (the number of times something has happened, such as the number of articles written). When dependent variables are categorical rather than continuous, conventional OLS regression techniques are not appropriate. This course therefore discusses the wide array of methods that are available for examining categorical outcomes. Heavy use will be made of Stata and possibly other programs. Course requirements will include writing a quantitative paper using one or more of the methods discussed. SOC Thesis Direction Reserved for the six credit-hour thesis requirement of the master s degree. SOC Nonresident Thesis Research For non-resident master s degree students. SOC Dissertation Completion One credit requirement for students past their eighth year. SOC Research and Dissertation For resident graduate students who have completed all course requirements for the Ph.D. SOC Nonresident Dissertation Research For non-resident graduate students who have completed all course requirements for the Ph.D.

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